In this episode, I welcome back Rebecca Li to talk about her new book, Illumination: A Guide to the Buddhist Method of No Method. Rebecca and I had a conversation in May of 2021, about her previous book, Allow Joy into Our Hearts: Chan Practice in Uncertain Times. Rebecca is a meditation and Dharma teacher in the lineage of Chan Master Sheng Yen and founder and guiding teacher of Chan Dharma Community, a Chan Buddhist practice and study community made up of individuals committed to cultivating wisdom and compassion for the benefit of all beings. Rebecca has two decades of Dharma and meditation teaching experience, leading retreats or teaching at Buddhist centers in North America, Europe, and Asia. She has been featured in several Buddhist publications, including Tricycle, Lion's Roar, and Buddhadharma.  She is also one of the founding board members of The GenX Buddhist Teachers Sangha where she continues to serve as a board member. Rebecca is a sociology professor and lives with her husband in New Jersey. In Allow Joy into Our Hearts, Rebecca wrote about Chan Practice and she continues to teach the path of Chan Buddhism in the book we will discuss today, Illumination. In Illumination, she dives deeper into the Chan meditation of Silent Illumination and deeper still into what causes our suffering and how Silent Illumination can help us identify and help decrease the causes of our suffering. In her book, Rebecca takes us on a fascinating, deep-dive into the method of no method in silent illumination and guides us in the mechanics of this type of practice. In our conversation we talked about, among other things: How, in our meditation, we turn thoughts into enemies, rather than allowing thoughts and feelings to be fully experienced and felt … About how tend to try to "achieve" as meditators, as if a sport … And about the modes of operation: craving, aversion, trance, problem-solving, intellectualizing, quietism, and forgetting-emptiness …   Buy the book (Amazon affiliate link): Illumination: A Guide to the Method of No-Method   Learn more about Rebecca Li and her Dharma talks, guided meditation offerings, and retreats: https://rebeccali.org/       *Special Everyday Buddhism Substack / Words From My Teachers podcast subscription promo code: Redeem by 3/31/2024 for 20% subscription for 1 year!   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Join the Everyday Sangha: Join the Everyday Sangha   Join the Membership Community: https://donorbox.org/membershipcommunity   Register for the Introduction to Buddhism Course (by February 22, 2024): Register for the Introduction to Buddhism course   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

This week, over at my new premium Substack podcast, Words From My Teachers, I released Episode 6, continuing readings from the book, The Center Within by Rev. Gyomay Kubose. In the episode I read the following essays: Middle Way, Water, Purposeless Purpose, No Mind, and How the Buddha Taught. As a special bonus episode for the Everyday Buddhism podcast, I am sharing the reading of the essay Purposeless Purpose. It's a wonderful essay to reflect on, as they all are in The Center Within, but I'm releasing it here on the Everyday Buddhism podcast as a companion piece to Episode 103.   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Subscribe to my premium Substack feed and podcast, Words From My Teachers: Subscribe to "Words From My Teachers"   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

As a special bonus episode for the Everyday Buddhism podcast, I am sharing the reading of the essay Purposeless Purpose. It's a wonderful essay to reflect on, as they all are in The Center Within, but I'm releasing it here on the Everyday Buddhism podcast as a companion piece, which you will find in the next episode, 104. But as a special introduction to the bonus episode, I am adding new content in this re-release of an episode I did in June of 2022, called Why Nonsense Makes the Most Sense, which was built on the essay, Purposeless Purpose. The new addition is some insight about meditation that is related to the purposeless-purpose message.   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Find out more and register for the Introduction to Buddhism course: Introduction to Buddhism course information and registration   Join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community: Join the Membership Community   Join the Everyday Sangha: Join the Everyday Sangha   Subscribe to my premium Substack feed and podcast, Words From My Teachers: Subscribe to "Words From My Teachers"   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In the spirit of the holiday season, I am re-releasing a popular episode from 2019: The Boundless Heart - Bodhicitta. It is my wish that we all try to practice being a Bodhisattva during this holiday season … Starting with me! ;) Stating the obvious, it's been a rough 7 years or so. Years marked by war, pandemic, social injustice, tribalism and, overall, something called "high conflict" made popular by Amanda Ripley's book of the same name, where conflict is the ruling energy and that leads to the stress, fear, anxiousness, and despair most of us have been feeling. She writes: The challenge of our time is to mobilize great masses of people to make change without dehumanizing one another. Not just because it’s morally right but because it works. Lasting change, the kind that seeps into people’s hearts, has only ever come about through a combination of pressure and good conflict. Both matter. That’s why, over the course of history, nonviolent movements have been more than twice as likely to succeed as violent ones. It with this in mind I offer the replay of this 2019 episode, a reflection on bodhicitta, the good heart—something we can all practice even if we don't participate in nonviolent movements or the "good conflict" Amanda Ripley refers to. I know it's been far too easy for me to react in anger when I'm really just afraid and to dismiss instead of disagreeing, which is a dehumanizing activity. So, in the spirit of holiday peace, good will, and reflection, I will remember the bodhicitta. Bodhicitta characterizes the path of a Mahayana practitioner. It is Bodhicitta that creates a Bodhisattva and it is Bodhicitta that ultimately creates a Buddha. In Tibetan, compassion is translated as the nobility or greatness of heart which implies wisdom, discernment, empathy, unselfishness, and abundant kindness. Bodhicitta is compassion working with a mind awakened by right view. It is the joining of compassion and emptiness. We'll examine how to use the Four Bodhisattva Vows to supercharge Right Intention with Right View and discover the same spacious freedom of a flower that blooms despite its circumstances. Please join me as you listen to this "best of" episode.   Book by Amanda Ripley referenced in podcast (Amazon affiliate link): High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out       Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Subscribe to my premium Substack feed and podcast, Words From My Teachers: Subscribe to "Words From My Teachers"   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In this episode of Words From My Teachers, an Everyday Buddhism podcast, I am reading the first five chapters from The Center Within by Rev. Gyomay Kubose: Awareness A Shining Star Buddha Nature and Gassho Buddhism Is Everyday Life Empty-Handed I hope you enjoy these readings and I hope you will take my suggestion and cue to do some reflection at the end of each essay. As my teacher, Rev. Koyo Kubose taught, "Don't just read. Ask yourself how you can use what you heard? How can you add it to your spiritual toolbox?" This is the last of the episodes released in full as public episodes, so be sure to subscribe to receive 5 essay readings weekly. And please share this feed using the convenient "Share" button on the Substack post. Subscribe to Words From My Teachers Premium Podcast ***************************************** For more about Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: Bright Dawn.org

Introducing Words From My Teachers, a premium, weekly Everyday Buddhism podcast. Words From My Teachers features readings from the books written by and about my teachers from the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and the Kubose Dharma Legacy … Rev. Gyomay Kubose, Rev. Koyo Kubose, and Haya Akegarasu.   This is the first of 2 episodes that will be offered as public podcast episodes … then make sure to sign up to receive them weekly through the Substack link.   In this first episode, I will give a background of Bright Dawn, based on an article I wrote some years ago. I called it The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: Buddhism with Attitude—Keeping it REAL and ALIVE. It summarizes the history of the Kubose family and Bright Dawn and I have shared a link to a PDF of the original article in my Everyday Buddhism Substack feed.   Rev. Koyo Kubose and his father, Rev. Gyomay Kubose, continued the mission started by the Japanese Pure Land teachers, Honen and Shinran—bringing the Dharma to everyone in their everyday lives. Rev. Gyomay Kubose’s lifework was dedicated to promoting Buddhism in America, so that the Dharma could be part of the lives of those in a Western culture, where Buddhism was not native.   It is my hope that this Words From My Teachers podcast will help keep Rev. Gyomay's and Rev. Koyo's voices alive by bringing them to listeners not familiar with the Bright Dawn teachings and reinforcing them to those who already appreciate them.   Stay tuned for the next episode, with a reading from Rev. Gyomay Kubose's book, The Center Within, that will be offered as public podcast episodes … then make sure to sign up to receive them weekly, on Mondays, by subscribing to my Everyday Buddhism Substack premium content.   Subscribe to Words From My Teachers Premium Podcast ***************************************** For more about Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: Bright Dawn.org

Introducing Words From My Teachers, a premium, weekly Everyday Buddhism podcast. Words From My Teachers features readings from the books written by and about my teachers from the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and the Kubose Dharma Legacy … Rev. Gyomay Kubose, Rev. Koyo Kubose, and Haya Akegarasu. I started the Everyday Buddhism podcast in June of 2018 so that I could share the everyday approach to Buddhism that was instilled in me by my teacher Rev. Koyo Kubose and the Bright Dawn Lay Ministry program. It is an approach that was not widely taught or communicated at the time … and, honestly, it still isn't. The lineage from which the Bright Dawn teachings derived is unique in the Dharma-sphere and its teachings are what I built my podcast and virtual sangha approach on. It is my hope that this Words From My Teachers podcast will help keep Rev. Gyomay's and Rev. Koyo's voices alive by bringing them to listeners not familiar with the Bright Dawn teachings and reinforcing them to those who already appreciate them. Stay tuned for the first 2 episodes that will be offered as public podcast episodes … then make sure to sign up to receive them weekly by subscribing to my Everyday Buddhism Substack premium content. Subscribe to Words From My Teachers Premium Podcast

What a delight it is to have James Crews joining me for a conversation about the book, The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal, which he edited. James is the author of the essay collection, Kindness Will Save the World, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies, including The Wonder of Small Things, Healing the Divide, The Path to Kindness, and How to Love the World. He has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, and in People Magazine, The Boston Globe, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun Magazine, and The Washington Post. He is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry, and his poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, and other journals. As you will no doubt hear, James is a gentle soul whose conversation about poetry, spirituality, and life is healing … His words and the tender way he speaks them is a balm for our painful and anxious times. Among other things, we talked about: How we turn to poetry during difficult times like these precisely because as James expresses it, "poems are such small but spacious containers that hold so much with just a few powerful sensory details" …. And, he says, "Poetry heals because it is so embodied." Poetry as spiritual practice. How poets do what they do with language. How poetry helps us transcend dualistic thinking. How poetry creates connection and compassion. Take some time to ease into this episode. I promise you will be soothed and come away craving more poetry in your life, even if you never appreciated it before.   Buy the book (Amazon affiliate link): The Wonder of Small Things book   Learn more about James Crews, course offerings, and subscribe to weekly email: https://www.jamescrews.net/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/james.crews.poet   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crewspoet     Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

I am very happy to share the wisdom of Gemma Naturkach, a member of our Everyday Buddhism Community and Sangha. I asked Gemma to join me for a conversation on the podcast, after listening to her share her reflections and insight about her experiences as a refugee from Ukraine. It really helps give us a bigger perspective—a perspective from the real-life experience of a woman trying to make sense of everything that happened to her and her family, who were driven from their home and country because of war. Gemma is a U.S. Army vet and member of a three-culture family. She is an ICF and iPEC certified coach and founder of Social Media for Coaches. She is deeply committed to using her experiences to champion the voices of those who have been uprooted from their homes. Her wisdom was sharpened through her own experience as she and her family made their way from Ukraine to Wisconsin in February 2022. After asking her to be guest on the podcast, I found out that Gemma has written a book, called  Surviving Patriotism, targeted for release in 2024.This work serves as a testament to her emotional journey during her and her family's evacuation and subsequent resettlement. Among other things, we talked about how home and community is where you make it … the complex emotions of hating and then trying not to hate the "enemy" … how rage doesn't think, reflect, or consider … how war is romanticized … and how we feel pressured to pick a side, labeling one as bad and the other as good … and ways we might help when we feel helpless. I am positive Gemma's reflection on her experience … her honest sharing of what she went through and her thoughts along the way … may help you see war, anger, and propaganda from a broader and clearer lens … a lens outside our cultural or tribal bubbles. I know it did me     Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

I am delighted to share this conversation with Roshi Eve Myonen Marko about The Book of Householder Koans: Waking Up in the Land of Attachments, which she co-wrote with Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao. It was released in 2020 but I'm sure glad I finally found it! It's become one of my new favorite books and a real treasure as a practice tool. Roshi Eve Marko is a Founding Teacher of the Zen Peacemaker Order, with her late husband, the renowned Roshi Bernie Glassman. She is also the resident teacher at the Green River Zen Center in Massachusetts. Roshi has trained spiritually-based social activists and peacemakers in the US, Europe, and the Middle East, and has been a Spiritholder at retreats bearing witness to genocide at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Rwanda, and the Black Hills in South Dakota. Before that she worked at the Greyston Mandala, which provides housing, child care, jobs, and AIDS-related medical services in Yonkers, New York. Koans have always been a favorite practice of mine but I had drifted away from them off and on … and off for the last few years until this book. If you've listened to earlier episodes of this podcast, then you may have heard my back-to-back episodes about Zen Koans. This is unlike any book about koans I've ever read. It drills deep into your "hiding places" … doing what koans do perfectly: They stop you in your tracks, as they mess with your conceptual thinking, and shake your false trust in the stability of what we think we know. Being drawn into questions, without the comfortable ground of "knowing" offers a practice that can help us pause in our everyday rush to stress and anxiousness caused by trying to be somewhere other than where we are at this moment. I just loved this conversation with Roshi Eve! Among many other things, we talked about…The importance of "not knowing" … About the surprise factor in the situations we find ourselves in life and how they help the mind "make leaps" … And about how we should try to enter life with out whole selves—our bodies, not just our minds. So, don't miss this one! One of my favorite Buddhist subjects and one of the best books I've read in a very long time.   Buy the book, read the reviews, and learn more about Roshi Eve:   https://www.monkfishpublishing.com/products-page-2/buddhism/book-householder-koans/   Website and Blog: https://www.evemarko.com/   Zen Peacemakers: https://zenpeacemakers.org/   Green River Zen Center: http://www.greenriverzen.org/   Interview with Roshi Eve Myonen Marko: https://www.zlmc.org/blog/interview-with-roshi-eve-myonen-marko     Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

This is a special encore episode with Rev. Marvin Harada, the Bishop of the Buddhist Churches of America. It also includes a new introduction highlighting the upcoming study of The Pure Land Sutras in our Everyday Sangha ... and why sutra study is so important in Buddhist practice. Come join us!   In the re-released episode with Rev. Harada, we discuss what makes Shin Buddhism a truly "everyday Buddhism", meditation, mindfulness, chanting, ritual, and about the teachers we have in common and what made them special.   I know you'll enjoy this talk with Rev. Harada as much as I did talking with him. He is down-to-earth and delightful, if you can't tell by his giggle! if you've never heard of Shin Buddhism—or don't know too much about it—this episode is for you.   Pure Land Buddhism is one of the most widely practiced forms of Buddhism in East Asia, and in Japan, Shin Buddhism, or Jodo Shinshu, is actually the largest school of Buddhism in Japan.   CORRECTION TO THE INTRODUCTION OF REV. HARADA: Rev. Harada served as a minister for the Orange County Buddhist Church, but did not serve as head minister throughout the entire 33-year period.   Find out more about the Buddhist Churches of America: https://www.buddhistchurchesofamerica.org/   Find out more about the BCA "Everyday Buddhist" program mentioned by Bishop Harada: https://www.everydaybuddhist.org/       Join the Everyday Sangha: https://donorbox.org/supporters-bonus-content-membership   Join the Membership Community: https://donorbox.org/membershipcommunity   Find out more about or register for the Introduction to Buddhism Course: https://www.everyday-buddhism.com/p/introduction-to-buddhism-course-and-registration-1/   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

I am thrilled to share this conversation with Rainn Wilson—Yes, that guy … the actor best known for his role as Dwight Schrute in The Office. In the conversation we talk about his recent book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. Rainn Wilson is a NY Times Bestselling author and three-time Emmy nominated actor best known for his role in NBC’s The Office. Besides his many other comedic and dramatic roles on stage and screen, he is the co-founder of the media company SoulPancake and host of the docuseries Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss. Rainn is the author of the New York Times Bestseller Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution, The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy, as well as the coauthor of SoulPancake: Chew on Life’s Big Questions. Some of this you may already know about Rainn, I'm sure, but something you may not know—but will learn from this conversation—is that, in addition to Rainn being a practitioner of the Baha'i faith, he is deeply spiritual, has studied many religions, and has a unique ability to capture the deepest of existential philosophy and social behavior in common cultural references and everyday language. Among many other things, we talked about what spirituality is ... what soul is ... who or what God is or isn't ... The two aspects of spirituality as demonstrated by the 1970's TV shows, Kung Fu and Star Trek ... What is sacred and where can we find it? Rainn's new book took me deep into reflection but also kept me giggling. It's the same with our conversation. So, keep listening … I promise Rainn will open your mind, open your heart, and—of course—make you laugh. The conversation starts now …   Buy the books (Amazon affiliate links): Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution   Soul Pancake: Chew on Life's Big Questions The Bassoon King: Art, Idiocy, and Other Sordid Tales from the Band Room   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/RainnWilson/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/rainnwilson   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rainnwilson/       Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

You're in for a treat in this episode. At least it was a treat for me to have a conversation with Clark Strand. Clark is a former Zen monk, author, Haiku teacher, and communicator of all things spiritual and religious. He has studied and actually practiced within many, many spiritual and religious traditions so he speaks from actual experience. The focus of today's conversation is on his book, Waking the Buddha: How The Most Dynamic and Empowering Buddhist Movement in History is Changing Our Concept of Religion, but Clark is also the author of Seeds From a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey, Now Is the Hour of Her Return: Poems In Praise of the Divine Mother Kali, co-author, with Perdita Finn, of The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary, and many other books on poetry, spirituality, and ecology. He is the co-founder of an international, non-sectarian rosary fellowship with members across the world. I invited him on the podcast to talk about Nichiren Buddhism, Soka Gakkai, and chanting, in general. It is a subject I haven't covered on this podcast and the timing was sparked by the recent passing of Tina Turner who was a very public Soka Gakkai practitioner. Although the focus of the conversation began with the Soka Gakkai, it became a fascinating journey to many other areas, due to Clark's wide reach and his spiritual depth. Among many other things, we talked about the folk traditions within all religions. Or, as Clark said, "there is always a religion within a religion." … About how the Soka Gakkai became virtually the only ethnically and  racially diverse Buddhist organization religion in the world… About why Clark states that spirituality needs to be about "ecology not theology" and that the reason the thread that runs through his spiritual experience IS ecology and the folk traditions… And, for fellow Pure Land and Shin practitioners, about how the Pure Land tradition is the only tradition deeply grounded in ecology… About Haiku… About the divine feminine, the Divine Mother, and the rosary as a spiritual and NOT a religious practice … and is, essentially, a tantric mantra practice… About the 12-Steps program… About chanting and how it gives voice to one's intentions, dreams, or hopes … and is the most ancient form of spiritual practice… Listen and enjoy the journey... Learn more about Clark: https://wayoftherose.org/   https://tricycle.org/author/clarkstrand/   Buy the books: Waking the Buddha: How the Most Dynamic and Empowering Buddhist Movement in History Is Changing Our Concept of Religion   Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey: 25th Anniversary Edition: Revised & Expanded   The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarkstrand/   https://www.instagram.com/way_of_the_rose/     Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/clarkstrand/       Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

A special mini episode, celebrating our interdependence. Listen as I share a reflection on what I call my "Buddhist-Born-Again moment." I finally learned what the Buddha taught. I finally saw that one of—if not THE most important foundations of Buddhist practice—is becoming aware of your inherent ignorance and the limitations of self. It is surprisingly freeing to realize that we are NOT really the masters of our destiny, because the choices we make about the thoughts we think and the actions we take are a product of a complex web of experiences, surroundings, and relationships—of which everyone else is a part. It is a seeming paradox that accepting our dependence on others can provide our ultimate freedom. In that humble, yet active acceptance we embrace what my late teacher, Rev. Koyo Kubose, expresses as “acceptance IS transcendence.” In doing so, we are declaring our interdependence.   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In this episode, I begin with a brief celebration of the 5th anniversary of this podcast and 1 million unique downloads, then move to a reflection on conditioned existence through the lens of climate change and the pandemic. The Buddha taught that we suffer because of change and conditioned existence. In other words, we suffer because we have a nature that is impermanent and and changeable, based on the conditions that affect us. Because of the truth of conditioned existence, there is nothing for sure ... absolute ... unchanging. We suffer because we expect and/or desire things to be otherwise. In thinking about the smoke from wildfires and the Covid pandemic, we see that we're collectively facing the truth of life: that we have little control over the things that happen to us. The only thing we can control is our response to the things that happen to us. Listen as I share a reflection on how these times of change and uncertainty are a time of opportunity. An opportunity to change our perspectives from habits of fear, despair, grief, or anger to more noble, compassionate responses to everyone and every being we share our world with.   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In this episode I am honored to talk with Satish Kumar, a peace-pilgrim, life-long activist, and former monk, who has been inspiring global change for more than 50 years. As a child, Satish renounced the world and became a wandering Jain monk. Then in his 20s, he undertook a pilgrimage for peace, walking for two years without money, from India to America, for the cause of nuclear disarmament. Now in his 80s, Satish has devoted his life to campaigning for ecological regeneration, social justice, and spiritual fulfillment. Over the decades, he has been the guiding spirit behind a number of internationally respected ecological and educational ventures, as well as a world-renown author and international speaker. But the focus of today's conversation is his new book, Radical Love: From Separation to Connection with the Earth, Each Other, and Ourselves. You will be inspired and uplifted by this conversation with Satish, where he talks about life as a pilgrimage … and the Trinity of soil, soul, and society … How we are "soil beings"… and how activists must become optimists—wonderful inspiration in this age of doom scrolling and climate despair. Learn more about Satish and the book: https://www.parallax.org/authors/satish-kumar/   https://www.resurgence.org/satish-kumar/   Buy the book: https://bookshop.org   https://shop.resurgence.org/product/view/REBK111/radical-love   Browse more books by Satish Kumar: https://bookshop.org/search?keywords=Satish+Kumar   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CqSqU_pPRPR/   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/page/52728482105/search/?q=Satish%20Kumar     Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In this episode, I celebrate May Day with a re-release of Episode 13 of this podcast, Right Effort: Joyful Balance. I originally released the episode for Labor Day 2018. I thought back on it during the last couple of weeks as I struggled to be still and relax, while recovering from oral surgery during the first week of warm weather. I was restless because, despite the beautiful smells, sounds, and feelings of the NOW of spring around me, I wasn't really there. My attention was on another time where I was accomplishing things on my mental to-do list. I narrate my recent experience trying to understand Right Effort in an intro to the longer episode from 2018. In this chock-full episode, I review the whole Eightfold Path but focus on ways to create a joyful balance around effort. I talk about the Five Hindrances, especially one of my own battles: restlessness. I think many of you will agree. Even in meditation, we can't wait to "get at it." We are bored while we're working and agitated while relaxing. Let my restlessness and inability to relax and enjoy the beginning of summer serve as an example for you. A time to pause and consider whether your "efforts" in life are "right"? Are they in balance? Are you trying to be perfect? Are you so consistently acting from the habit of self-perfection and achievement that you're unable to relax? It all hinges on paying attention; about noticing. That is the hard part. Adjusting your habits isn't as hard. Listen to find ways to help in creating "joyous effort" through "The Five Daily Guidelines" offered by The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: The Five Daily Guidelines: 5 Daily Guidelines   Join me and Bob Unyo Ahlander Sensei, virtually on Zoom, for the first session of the next Introduction to Buddhism Course starting Wednesday, May 17th, 2023 at 7:30PM. Find out more:Introduction to Buddhism info and registration   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

Don't miss this fascinating episode where I talk with Cindy Rasicot, an award-winning author of Finding Venerable Mother: A Daughter's Spiritual Quest to Thailand and creator of Casual Buddhism, a weekly YouTube series that welcomes people from all walks of life to explore their spiritual practice in conversation with Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni. The focus of the conversation is Cindy's spiritual life—especially her relationship with Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, the first woman to be ordained in Thailand. We talk, of course, about Venerable Dhammananda and her amazing and inspirational life journey from academic to activist to spiritual leader ... and about women in Buddhism. We discuss how Buddhism can be "caught not taught" to be, first, experiential, then conceptual, which is Cindy's experience with Buddhism. We also talk about the importance of healing the mother-daughter relationship … And the riches of experiencing multiple spiritual traditions, as is modeled by Venerable Dhammananda. Learn more about Cindy Rasicot and the book: https://cindyrasicot.com/   Buy the book (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/3KnnM5s   Instagram: https://instagram.com/cindy.rasicot Facebook: https://facebook.com/cindy.rasicot.author   Casual Buddhism YouTube Series: Casual Buddhism - Youtube.com   Casual Buddhism with Wendy Shinyo & Venerable: https://youtu.be/9jjq_jKnYX8   Ted Talk with Venerable Dhammanada: Ted Talk: Dhammananda Bikkuni, "Empowering Our Potentiality"   Learn more about Venerable Dhammananda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammananda_Bhikkhuni   Venerable Dhammananda's Songdhammakalyani Monastery: https://www.thaibhikkhunis.com/en/     Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits, including a membership community and virtual sangha:https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In this episode I talk with Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, an author, Zen teacher, and Jungian psychotherapist who has devoted his life to the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism.    In our conversation, we discuss Koshin's latest book, Untangled: Walking The Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion.  Among many other things, we talk about: * The needy Cookie Monster in him, myself, and maybe many of you. * The power of perspective in helping you to recognize when your old stories resurface. * The 3 kinds of minds: Grandmotherly Mind, Great Mind, and Joyful Mind. * Self-clinging as a deep form of stealing. * And how everything, everywhere is a  "place of practice."   I was thrilled to have this conversation with Koshin. Keep listening and you'll know why … you can actually hear the twinkle in his eyes and his beaming smile.     Learn more about Koshin and the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care:   About Koshin: https://zencare.org/sensei-koshin-paley-ellison/   New York Zen Center: https://zencare.org/   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zencare   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newyorkzencenter/   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/new-york-zen-center-for-contemplative-care/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/nyzencenter   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@newyorkzencenterforcontemp4985   **************   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

Welcome to a special BONUS podcast, introducing our first "Chat with Everyday Buddhism" YouTube videocast on our Everyday Buddhism YouTube channel and now as an audio version for the podcast.   It is our very first episode of "Chat with Everyday Buddhism" where we are planning a series of chats with our sangha leaders, our sangha members, and special guests. In the first chat, join a conversation with Wendy Shinyo Sensei, the host of the Everyday Buddhism podcast and leader of the Everyday Sangha; Bradley Jinaiyo Sensei and Terry Hosken, practice leaders of the Everyday Sangha.   In this episode we talk about what Everyday Buddhism is all about and the benefit of finding community with a sangha. If you would like to ask a question or suggest a subject for us to discuss on upcoming "chat with buddhism" casts, you can do so by leaving me a voice mail on the everyday buddhism website or send an email. Go to www.everyday-buddhism.com/contact to send am email or click on the tab on the sidebar to leave us a voice mail message that is no longer than 2 minutes.   **************   Check out the conversation on our YouTube channel:https://youtu.be/L1cydaz03fg Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

In this episode, I talk with Emma Varvaloucas, an editor and writer with a decade+ focusing on discovering and publicizing underreported good news in the nonprofit media space.   Emma is the executive director of The Progress Network, where she writes the popular What Could Go Right? weekly newsletter and is co-host of the What Could Go Right? podcast. She was formerly the executive editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and the editor of two books from Wisdom Publications.   In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss how we can train our minds to not overreact to the negative and scary things that are happening in the world so that we might respond with equanimity rather than join the chorus of divisiveness and despair.   Among many other things, we talk about the news, social media, polarization … and a non-grasping way of thinking about progress as not a utopia just around the corner but more a noticing of the gradual arc of improvement in people's lives by focusing less on the click-bait negative headlines and more on what is going right.     Learn more about The Progress Network:   Website: https://theprogressnetwork.org/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/progressntwrk   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/progressntwrk   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/progressntwrk/?hl=en   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-progress-network/   TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@progressntwrk?_t=8VeFaR9Zyxq&_r=1   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI2_M_Y7-PyJurGXbTuThtw   **************   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, Everyday Buddhism

Enjoy a special release of a Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. I've released this contemplation, "Impermanence", as a birthday gift to my podcast audience, in celebration of my 70th birthday. It is by my friend and fellow Buddhist teacher, Kaspa Thompson. It purposely follows the episode, "Navigating Grief and Loss" by Kimberly Brown. Kaspa directs the Bright Earth with their partner, Satya, and works as a psychotherapist. They has been a Buddhist teacher for more than a decade and has a special interest in outside practice. They are a committee member of the Eco Dharma Network, and Chair of the Network of Buddhist Organisations UK. I am publicly releasing another bonus podcast, at the same time. It is a reflection on the Five Remembrances and presented by my dear friend and Everyday Buddhism Sangha leader, Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum. These bonus contemplation podcasts will be released regularly and presented by myself or some of my Bright Dawn Lay Minister/lay ministry student friends and colleagues. To be sure you don't miss any of them, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community or Everyday Sangha: https://www.everydaybuddhismcommunity.com/join-community-or-sangha.html For more about Kaspa and the Bright Earth Pure Land Buddhist Temple, check out these websites: https://www.brightearth.org/ http://www.kaspathompson.co.uk/ ***************** Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits!https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism

Enjoy a special release of a Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. I've released this contemplation, "The Five Remembrances", as a birthday gift to my podcast audience, in celebration of my 70th birthday. It is by my dear friend and Everyday Buddhism Sangha Leader, Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum. It purposely follows the episode, "Navigating Grief and Loss" by Kimberly Brown. I am publicly releasing another bonus podcast, at the same time. It is a reflection on Impermanence and presented by my friend and fellow Buddhist teacher, Kaspa Thompson. These bonus contemplation podcasts will be released regularly and presented by myself or some of my Bright Dawn Lay Minister/lay ministry student friends and colleagues. To be sure you don't miss any of them, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community or Everyday Sangha: https://www.everydaybuddhismcommunity.com/join-community-or-sangha.html ***************** Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits!https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism

In this episode, I celebrate my 70th birthday, which was yesterday, with the release of 2 special bonus contemplations on impermanence. I saved a couple of Members-only bonus episodes for release following episode 81, "Navigating Grief and Loss" with Kimberly Brown. They are Impermanence with Kaspa Thompson (Inspired by Shan Tao) and "The Five Remembrances" with Bradley Jinaiyo Nussbaum. I know many of you have more of your life ahead of you rather than behind you, the truth is, we can never know. That's the thing about impermanence and that's what these two contemplations are helping us to reflect on. It becomes harder to ignore impermanence as you age, yet I still find plenty of ways to forget about it. Not as many ways as when I was 35, but there are still plenty of ways to try to run from it. Please enjoy the contemplations and thank you to both Kaspa and Bradley for their wonderful reflections. To be sure you don't miss any of the bonus contemplations, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community or Everyday Sangha: https://www.everydaybuddhismcommunity.com/join-community-or-sangha.html ***************** Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits!https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism  

In this episode, I talk with Kimberly Brown about her new book, Navigating Grief and Loss:25 Buddhist Practices to Keep your Heart Open to Yourself and Others, where she shares an approachable pathway to personal and collective well-being through real-life, contemporary meditations based on traditional practices.   We talk about the power of love for reducing mental suffering … the illusion of control and remembering things are not all up to us … being present for and taking care of anger and other mental poisons … and how to skillfully let go of hope and fear … Among many other things.   During this holiday time, I know many have a hard time keeping their hearts open and enjoying the season due to the pain of loss and grief. I hope listening to the gentle wisdom Kimberly offers in our conversation will help you discover new ways to "navigate" the pain you feel.   Buy her books through my affiliate links: Navigating Grief and Loss: 25 Buddhist Practices to Keep your Heart Open to Yourself and Others   Steady, Calm, and Brave: 25 Practices for Resilience and Wisdom in a Crisis   Find out more about Kimberly Brown: Website: https://www.meditationwithheart.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlyjbrown/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meditationwithheart/     **************   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"

In this special "best of" episode, we celebrate Bodhi Day, the traditional celebration of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni's enlightenment. Yet, listen as we discover how it is a celebration of our enlightenment, too. The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. Without darkness, we couldn't know light. Shakyamuni's enlightenment experience is ours. He proclaimed, "I and the great earth, and all beings are naturally and simultaneously awakened." We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light. ****************** Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Or say "Hi, I enjoy your podcast by buying me a coffee!" Buy Me a Coffee

In this episode, I get lost in a conversation with Deborah Eden Tull, who I wished I could have talked with for hours! Deborah Eden Tull is a Zen meditation and dharma teacher, author, public speaker, and sustainability educator.   In our conversation we discuss her latest book, Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown, a deep book bridging the Dharma, personal awareness, and transformation—through the lens of darkness and all that word connotes, like uncertainty, change, grief, and fear.   I know you'll enjoy this episode, as we meander through a conversation about spirituality, living in inquiry, leading in the dark AND being LED by the dark ... and showing up as we are, in our strength and vulnerability.   And I'm sure you will be inspired by Deborah Eden Tull, as she shares a way for all of us to "navigate the uncertainty of our times" and welcome the presence of life "as it is."   Buy the book through my affiliate link: Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown   Find out more about Deborah Eden Tull and her upcoming retreats and workshops: https://www.deborahedentull.com/   On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MindfulLivingRevolution/   **************   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"

In this episode, I have a far-ranging and fascinating conversation with Melissa Moore, Ph.D., a teacher of Buddhism and Contemplative Psychology. In it we talk about her book, The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology, a treasure of a book that weaves the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism with psychology, producing a guidebook of real-life practices to address our internal struggles and the reactions we have to the daunting times we live in.   I know you'll enjoy this talk with Melissa, who openly shares her own personal challenges and personality in talking about how we can train ourselves to "go toward emotional energy and open to it for the wisdom that is innate with the messiness of feelings." She truly has her finger on the pulse of our reactive emotions and how they actually can be helpful in discovering our "intrinsic health."   I'm sure you will be inspired by the approach Melissa uses in Karuna Training, teaching that our vulnerabilities is where we will find our greatest strengths. In her book we learn that when we go towards discomfort and rest in not knowing, it becomes a great teacher.   Buy the book through my affiliate link: The Diamonds Within Us: Uncovering Brilliant Sanity Through Contemplative Psychology   Find out more about Melissa Moore, Ph.D. and Karuna Training: https://karunatraining.com/   On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karunatraining/   On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karunatraining/   **************   Check out my Substack posts for more everyday Buddhism: https://wendyshinyohaylett.substack.com/   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"

I am honored to present this podcast episode with Rev. Marvin Harada, the Bishop of the Buddhist Churches of America. In it we discuss what makes Shin Buddhism a truly "everyday Buddhism", meditation, mindfulness, chanting, ritual, and about the teachers we have in common and what made them special.   I know you'll enjoy this talk with Rev. Harada as much as I did talking with him. He is down-to-earth and delightful, if you can't tell by his giggle! if you've never heard of Shin Buddhism—or don't know too much about it—this episode is for you.   Pure Land Buddhism is one of the most widely practiced forms of Buddhism in East Asia, and in Japan, Shin Buddhism, or Jodo Shinshu, is actually the largest school of Buddhism in Japan.   CORRECTION TO THE INTRODUCTION OF REV. HARADA: Rev. Harada served as a minister for the Orange County Buddhist Church, but did not serve as head minister throughout the entire 33-year period.   Find out more about the Buddhist Churches of America: https://www.buddhistchurchesofamerica.org/   Find out more about the BCA "Everyday Buddhist" program mentioned by Bishop Harada: https://www.everydaybuddhist.org/   **************   If this podcast has helped you understand Buddhism or help in your everyday life, consider making a one-time donation here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-donations   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"

Enjoy another special preview of a Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. This contemplation, "Loved Just As I Am", is by my dear friend, Satya Robyn, and purposely follows the episode where I share my journey into baldness due to Alopecia Areata. Satya directs the Bright Earth with her partner, Kaspa, and works as a psychotherapist and a writer. These bonus contemplation podcasts will be released regularly and presented by myself or some of my Bright Dawn Lay Minister/lay ministry student friends and colleagues. To be sure you don't miss any of them, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community or Everyday Sangha: https://www.everydaybuddhismcommunity.com/join-community-or-sangha.html For more about Satya and the Bright Earth Pure Land Buddhist Temple, check out these websites: http://www.brightearth.org/ www.satyarobyn.com or at www.dearearth.co.uk ***************** Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism

In this episode, I share my journey into baldness caused by Alopecia Areata. September is Alopecia Awareness month, so I'm happy to share this episode now. No matter what our hair looks like or changes to, we are never satisfied. Hair seems one of the most prominent marks of our self. We seem uniquely attached to our hair as self. My hair loss first started in mid-December 2021, then paused and seemed to start growing back, then in April it was on a steady downward trend. And by July, I began to make peace with the fact that I was losing so much hair there wasn't much of a point in trying to hide it, so I shaved it all off. This was a process of working to accept things as they are, called Arugamama, from Morita Therapy in Japanese Psychology. Listen to this episode to see how I've come to accept my new bald self. ***************** Book, Diamond Sutra by Red Pine, mentioned in this podcast: The Diamond Sutra - Translation & Commentary by Red Pine  My book, mentioned in this podcast: Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices For Real Change ***************** Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism

Join me for a conversation with Jack Huynh, a long-time Buddhist practitioner and the founder of the https://beyondthecushion.com/ website. Jack is a first-generation immigrant to the U.S. from the Vietnam War and found his own path in the Dharma, different from his parents who are also Buddhist practitioners. Jack's website explores the diversity of Buddhist lay practice in a complex modern life. The idea for it was born from Jack's own curiosity and longing to ask lay practitioners about their practice, after years of attending retreats and not having a local sangha. In exploring the compelling personal stories of the practitioners highlighted on the site, you'll find that despite the Buddhist schools, lineages, geographic location, and stages of practice, all Dharma is Dharma. It's an inspiring journey, as is the conversation in this episode. Check out the website: https://beyondthecushion.com/   Visit Jack's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackhuynh/   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism"   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits! https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism

Join me for a special summer mirror episode of the podcast, Zen At The Sharp End by Mark Westmoquette where I was invited to talk about my experience with "troublesome Buddhas." The Zen At The Sharp End podcast focuses on how to turn difficult people and relationships into your best teachers. In each episode, Mark and guests discuss how Buddhist and mindfulness practices can help us see our difficult people or situations as troublesome Buddhas, our greatest teachers. I am sharing this episode of Mark's podcast on my podcast because I think what Mark has to teach with this method is something everyone of my listeners can benefit from. I am painfully honest in the episode, so I debated sharing it directly with you, but I believe it is in our shared vulnerability that Buddhist practice comes alive. Check out Mark's podcast: Zen at The Sharp End   Buy his book: Zen and the Art of Dealing with Difficult People: How to Learn from your Troublesome Buddhas Learn more about Mark by visiting his website: https://markwestmoquette.co.uk/   Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book: Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change   Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits!https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism

Join me for a very special conversation with Ashley Lynn Olson, the author of the book, Confined to Align, and the author of a life that has consistently defied the odds. And that is, in no small part, due to her unbelievable spirit and ability to steer her thoughts, emotions, … and her life into the positive. As you will hear, Ashley has overcome obstacles in her life that would knock many of so far down we would have trouble ever looking up again, including a car accident that killed her father and paralyzed her when she was fourteen years old. But she demonstrates an amazing attitude—dare I say a "Buddhist" way of seeing life—evident from this quote from her book: "Choose to choose. Feeling confined is a choice…. Choose compassion for yourself and those around you. Choose to see your situation as an opportunity to expand internally, or better yet, as a moment in time-space to re-align and focus on your path of well-being and purpose…." Click play to listen to a conversation with Ashley you won't soon forget! Buy the book: Confined to Align: A Journey to Wellbeing Learn more about Ashley by visiting her website: https://wheelchairtraveling.com/ Her YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/user/wheelchairtraveler08 And her Instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/wheelchairtraveling/   Click here to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices For Real Change  

Join me for a conversation with Arlene Faulk, as we talk about the ups and downs of living with the symptoms, diagnosis, and eventual healing of Multiple Sclerosis. Arlene went from a career as business executive to a calling as a Tai Chi teacher.  ​Arlene captured her dramatic personal story in a memoir, Walking on Pins and Needles: A Memoir of Chronic Resilience in the Face of Multiple Sclerosis. Faulk recounts how she regained mobility, embraced the power of Tai Chi, and took back control of her life. Her inspiring story demonstrates how a chronic and debilitating health condition lacks the power to control our lives and stop us from moving in the direction of possibility.   Buy the book: "Walking on Pins and Needles" Learn more about Arlene by visiting her website: https://arlenefaulk.com/about/   Check out her YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/faulktaichi

In the next two episodes, Episode 72 and Episode 73, I am in conversation with two amazing women who demonstrate with their lives how we can actively accept what seems unacceptable. Although these episodes represent something out of the ordinary for this podcast, they illustrate, in sharp detail, how everything changes and things that we don't want to happen to us WILL happen to us. After these two episodes, look for another Bonus Contemplation on the Five Remembrances for members of the Community and the Sangha, presented by Bradley Nussbaum. Join the Membership Community or Everyday Sangha now if you want to catch each of the upcoming Bonus Contemplations: Join Membership Community | Join the Everyday Sangha  

Enjoy a preview of a NEW Members Only Feature: Bonus Contemplation Podcasts. These are short podcasts for you to use as subjects for contemplation or analytical meditation. They will be released regularly and presented by myself or some of my Bright Dawn Lay Minister/lay ministry student friends and colleagues. To be sure you don't miss any of them, join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community: Join the Membership Community or the Everyday Sangha: Join the Everyday Sangha

Rev. Gyomay Kubose, my teacher's father, wrote about "purposeless purpose." He said: "Too much intelligence or too much efficiency can create trouble. So, we must learn non-intelligence, which is super intelligence." Does that sound nonsensical? Our sangha is studying The Diamond Sutra now and it is filled with reasoning (or non reasoning?) like that. It is the the superpower of the Dharma because the wisdom it contains is transcendent. You can't "get there" from here, by what is normally considered intelligence. You can only get there by learning "non-intelligence", as Rev. Gyomay teaches. My overall word of advice for enjoying being a student of the Dharma is to relax and not try to "figure it out." One of the main points of practicing with the Prajnaparamita sutras is to NOT try and understand it. That is what these sutras are teaching: It's NOT understanding. It's NOT about concepts. It's about living. Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism" Red Pine's translation and commentary of The Diamond Sutra And books from Rev. Koyo Kubose and Rev. Gyomay Kubose: Bright Dawn: Discovering Your Everyday Spirituality Everyday Suchness: Buddhist Essays on Everyday Living The Center Within

In the past year I've noticed a feeling of "disappearing" in the world ... and to the world. A sense of my slipping relevance to the people and world around me. Yet, the good news about seeming to disappear is that it reveals the absolute truth of things as they are. Am I disappearing or am I transcending? It's a simple twist of the head. A change in perception. A change in awareness that I realize through an understanding of emptiness, Japanese psychology, and the experience of meditation. Listen as I talk about my incredible disappearing self that happens through meditation and through the understanding that active acceptance is the key to transcending. Holding on to what I think I might be losing keeps me suffering like a shimmering ghost that is unable to let go. Actively accepting the naturalness of this disappearance kills me completely. Book, by Karl Brunnholzl, mentioned in this podcast: The Heart Attack Sutra: A New Commentary on the Heart Sutra My book, mentioned in this podcast: Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices For Real Change  

My teacher, mentor, and friend, Rev. Sunnan Koyo Kubose passed away suddenly last month. In his honor, I'm replaying Episode 20, a special interview with him, as the first of a series of episodes dedicated to honoring my teachers. It is through Bright Dawn and my Sensei, I learned how to bring Buddhism into the everyday. Listen as we discuss what the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and its Lay Ministry program is all about, from Rev. Koyo's perspective ... its historical influences, its mission, vision, and special niche as a program bringing the Dharma to everyone in an ordinary, everyday way. We'll talk about the balance of gratitude, humility, ambiguity, uncertainty, perfect studentship, and — most importantly — naturalness, in Bright Dawn and it's lay ministers, as they bring the Dharma to everyone. Support the podcast through the affiliate link to buy the book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change: Buy the book, "Everyday Buddhism" And books from Rev. Koyo Kubose and Rev. Gyomay Kubose: Bright Dawn: Discovering Your Everyday Spirituality Everyday Suchness: Buddhist Essays on Everyday Living The Center Within  

Join me for a delightful conversation with Vanessa Sasson who told the Buddha's story in a way you probably never heard it. She masterfully places you in the lives of Siddhartha and his wife, Yasodhara, as Siddhartha comes to grips with suffering for the first time. His obsession with ridding the world of the suffering that so many accept as part of life, is his calling. Sasson's calling was to write this story, based on her many years of study, as a Buddhist and religious scholar, but—most importantly—engaging with her imagination to bring the reader right in the middle of it, as she "feels the story of the Buddha's life." Vanessa Sasson urges us to see Buddhism as an engaged imagination. Buddhist text is open-ended and invites you to tell the story as you imagine it in your own life. Put away your concepts and "play with" the bigness of the story Sasson tells. Find out more about Vanessa Sasson: https://www.vanessarsasson.com/

Join me for a fascinating conversation with Arthur Brooks, where we talk about two of his 12 books, Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From the Culture of Contempt and From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, his new book just released this week. Because we talk about both books, it is a wide-ranging conversation, but I think I can summarize it by using Arthur's words from this episode. He talks about how we see ourselves and others as objects when he said, "When you can't humanize yourself, good luck humanizing anyone else." I invited Arthur to this podcast after reading his book, Love Your Enemies, where I heard a strong and rare voice in our current climate of divisiveness, urging us to look past the illusion of our separateness. A Buddhist theme, for sure. Or as Arthur said, "The sound of one hand clapping is an illusion, just like the illusion of the separateness of different people." Go to https://arthurbrooks.com/ for more about his books, podcast, and speaking engagements. Become a patron to support this podcast and get special member benefits!https://www.patreon.com/EverydayBuddhism  

In this podcast, I talk with Pamela Patton, Director of Pastoral Ministries for All Souls NYC. Pamela is a both a Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist and she founded the Buddhism and Mindfulness program at the popular Unitarian Universalist church, All Souls, in Manhattan. In a wide-reaching conversation, we talked—among other things—about how important it is to keep your own practice strong if you want to help others. I think this is just as important for all of us to keep in mind, as it is for Pastoral Ministers. I asked her what was one of the major issues people came to her to talk about with her over her tenure as a minister. She said, "connection." This just emphasizes how important connection has always been, even before the pandemic when we've all felt disconnected from each other. This is such an important theme in Buddhism because, as we know, not only are we social beings, we are all interconnected or "interbeing" as the late Thich Nhat Hanh coined.

In this episode, we celebrate the Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, and the light of the Buddha's Promise, meaning our enlightenment, too. The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. As Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote, "having discovered for himself the perfect peace of liberation, he kindles for us the light of knowledge, which reveals both the truths that we must see for ourselves and the path of practice that culminates in this liberating vision." We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light.

Join me for an absorbing and inspiring conversation with someone who I now consider a personal teacher: Kaira Jewel Lingo, the author of the just-released book, We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption. Kaira Jewel is a gentle voice that quietly shares the deepest wisdom in the simplest way. It is my favorite kind of teaching. It shifts and moves inside you until you say ah-ha! And all the while you don't feel taught. I've used her book and her Insight Timer series to give me the courage and compassion to keep going in these shattered and dark times of mistrust, injustice, climate change, and an endless pandemic. Kaira Jewel shares her story of beginning a new life outside the monastery, after 15 years as a nun with Thich Nhat Hanh's monastic community. But, most importantly, she shares convincing lessons that prove we were, indeed, made for these times because "every moment is our moment to be here as fully as we can be."

In this special repeat episode, we'll look at the overlaps between the pagan origination, rituals, and concepts of Halloween and Tibetan Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism ... and also examine it all from an Everyday Buddhism perspective. What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky? Buddhism is about seeing life as it is...seeing ourselves for who we really are...and all others for who they are. It is only then we can develop equanimity and compassion for all, including ourselves. Until then, we are living among apparitions like those on Halloween.

I can't stop talking about equanimity. So this episode is about the magic power of equanimity. What is it? Why is it important all the the time, but especially now? And how do we get it? As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I've been focusing my practice on developing equanimity and compassion. In this episode, I share some of the things that have been helping me find balance and a bit more spaciousness from the "crazy" during this time where I believe we all feel like our lives have been up-ended. I share six major tips to help you develop equanimity. The first is a foundational support for the rest: Mindful awareness of what causes us to be reactive or what triggers us. The next five are specific tips about our attitude toward the people and pets we love, our stuff, who to avoid, who to stay close to, and the importance of keeping up with your practice.

Join me for a conversation with Scott Snibbe, the host of the podcast, A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment. Enjoy a free-flowing conversation between two long-time Buddhist practitioners and podcast hosts as we talk about the power of Buddhism and meditation to help enhance our good qualities, make us happier, and—ultimately—help make those around us happier. Enjoy Scott's easy and fun style of explaining Buddhism and meditation. It will make you a believer if you weren't already. Like the smiling, joyful Tibetan Rinpoches, Geshes, and Khenpos, Scott's joyful personality is contagious. And if you are a skeptic and believe enlightenment is impossible, no problem. You are invited to dip your toe into this conversation and I'm convinced you'll want more!

To reiterate the obvious, life has been hard lately. Depressing and a struggle for many and devastating for so many others. All this suffering around us: plagues, violence, floods, fires. And those of you who follow this podcast know, I've been looking at how we might find a way to help ourselves and others through all this from many different Buddhist-oriented approaches. Finally, though, I personally came back to a practice and an attitude from my many years of Tibetan Buddhist study and practice: the practice of and—more foundational—the attitude of a bodhisattva.   I came back to the beginning. In the beginning is intention or, for the purposes of this podcast episode, attitude. Right intention. Right attitude. It was as if I felt myself, in the midst of our ongoing "burning world", feeling around for a way out. And, without any conscious decision, I reached for and grabbed all my bodhisattva teachings and haven't let go. When looking outside at our burning world is too hard to bear, it's time—again—to look inside. Look at my motivation, my intention … look at what my heart was holding and where my mind returned … and look to see how my heart can be softened and how my mind can let go of its death grip on negative thoughts. This is the sort of practice that is pulling me from a pattern I've been trapped in since early 2020, when the pandemic began. A pattern of bobbing to the surface, holding on to some sort of hope or thought of resilience, then​ being pulled back under when things don't seem to be getting better.​ For me, the trick was to keep practicing, with daily meditation on ​The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas and/or The Way of the Bodhisattva plus doing Tonglen (taking and sending), metta, and/or Lojong practice. It isn't easy because it takes breaking a habit of reactivity and, well, laziness or avoidance of the practice.

Join the conversation with one of my first teachers, Frank Howard, as we talk about a little book called The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas. I first met this book at the Dharma Center Frank directs and teaches, where His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche is a visiting teacher. Garchen Rinpoche says the entire Buddhist path can be found in the little book of The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas. Rinpoche had one of the little books in one hand and his prayer wheel in the other hand. I've read these 37 practices for more than a couple of decades ... but I haven't always practiced with them. This is what the conversation is about. It is a way to transform your life through transforming your mind. Listen ...

Join me for a conversation—and a gentle teaching—with one of the most clear and inspiring teachers I've met. Rebecca Li, the author of Allow Joy into Our Hearts: Chan Practice in Uncertain Times, talks with me about her new book and the inspiration behind it. I used her book—and will continue to use it—to help pull myself from falling into a dark world in my mind and a heart, as a response to the suffering of the pandemic and all the fear and mistrust that came with it. When suffering arises, Rebecca teaches us "how to suffer better." She teaches us to use a practice of total clear awareness to suffer better by knowing that we're suffering. It is the remembering to come back to practice, for the mind to come back to the body, that allows fear or sadness to move through you and not bury itself in you. And she teaches us not to focus just on the positive as a way to flee from the pain of suffering. That, she says, is a "form of violence to ourselves." Listen to an easy conversation with Rebecca Li, who provides insight into practicing with an "unbiased view of everything that comes before you."

It seems, sometimes, that when Buddhist and other religious teachers, and serious practitioners get deeper into practice, the more they seem capable of deluding themselves—either in a performative way, posing and positioning for others, or because they have completely deluded themselves about what is really happening within them. They hide their humanness behind the beauty and strength of their words, or their teacher's words, and they hide their brokenness. They hide so well they begin to believe they aren't broken. In this episode, I talk about my brokenness and about how, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, expressing the philosophy of wabi-sabi, we must embrace the flawed and imperfect to honor our whole self—in all its brokenness—rather than hide what is broken. We need to illuminate those broken parts.

Buddhist sutras and teachings speak of lamenting only in ways that highlight how it is to be avoided and transcended, so as not to fall victim to the second arrow of suffering. The Buddha's teaching that there is dukkha, or unsatisfactoriness, but suffering is optional through one's internal relationship to that dukkha. He teaches that is enough. But is it? I bet, at some time during the last year, you have cried out in your heart to restore life to how it used to be. We look around and everyone is suffering and nothing is the same. Why not cry out? A prayer of lament and grief can be a necessary expression of sorrow, as a crucial part of the experience of living in a broken world. The broken world the Buddha warned us about. When we lament the darkest moments of life, we are at are most humble. And it is from that place, true compassion for yourself and others—and true acceptance—is born.

Join us for this introduction of an Everyday Buddhism spin-off podcast! Follow the conversation of 4 friends: Holly Rockwell, a spiritual director and Ignatian prayer guide; Levi Shinyo Walbert Sensei, a Buddhist Lay Minister and seminary student pursuing chaplaincy and a Master of Divinity; Christopher Kakuyo Ross-Leibow Sensei, a Buddhist Lay Minister and sangha leader of the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship; and me, Wendy Shinyo Haylett, a Buddhist Lay Minister and your host of both podcasts. Listen as we will continue to talk about how you can enlighten your Buddhist practice through Christianity or how you can enlighten your Christian practice through Buddhism. This is where the light meets.

Join me as I share my struggle finding some peace in the midst of the uncertainties that have chased us from 2020 into 2021. Despite our urge to run, hide, strike out, or curl up in a ball, as Buddhists we need to remember that the Buddha never promised a rose garden. The Buddha never promised an ordered universe. He said life is suffering because we grasp to life being something other than it is. There's a post-modern paradigm that life keeps getting better and better due to technological and scientific progress. In some ways it does. But not without a little disorder. We need ways to navigate the disorder to some sense of reorder, without running back to the old order ... to our old "normal." We can do that with our minds. The Buddha made that promise through the first of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View or Right Understanding.

In this episode we are continuing our "How I'm Coping" series but with a bit of a different twist. I've brought together two podcast listeners who expressed a different perspective on how they are coping with the pandemic. Both of them come to their current coping abilities through previous "practice" as people with serious long-term health issues. We share many of the challenges, frustrations, fear, and daily uncertainties that come with serious chronic and/or progressive diseases and injury. This is just the sort of uncertainty and lack of control that we have all felt during the pandemic. We are still trying to understand how to cope with this uncertainty the pandemic has thrust upon us but our guests, Dr. Kelly Lockwood and William Seiyo Shehan Sensei, have navigated these challenges for many years due to their illness and injuries. Those with disabilities and chronic illnesses are easily overlooked in our "power-through" culture. This pandemic has highlighted how easily forgotten the aged and those with chronic illness and disabilities have become while the rest of the world rushes to get back to a "normal" that those with chronic illness will never regain.

In this podcast, we'll explore finding ways to say "thank you" in this time of loss, fear, despair, and uncertainty. I take some time reflecting on the Buddhist teachings of the gift of our "precious human life." Our lives are a gift. We did not plan, arrange, or have any control in making our births happen. We were gifted them. And, for that gift, despite how rocky our lives sometimes seem, we say "thank you!" Listen to how you can use mindful awareness to shift your focus to what's in front of you ... to "just this". Sitting in "just this", you are relieved of your endless wants, worries, dramas, AND sadness. From that place, you can connect to a place of freedom where your heart softens around your fears and joys, and you can relax in the whole of life—if only for a few minutes.

Join me in conversation with Kimberly Brown as we discuss her new book, Steady, Calm and Brave, a handbook of healing tools to help us through the fraught times of 2020—and beyond. In a delightfully honest and personal conversation, Kimberly shares how seeing students, friends, neighbors, and family afraid, disheartened, and sad, at the beginning of the pandemic was the motivation for writing the book. Kimberly shares her personal experience with trauma and how metta, body-based, and self-compassion Buddhist and pyschotherapeutic practices helped heal her and formed the intention for her to become a teacher of these practices. The practices Kimberly shares are a true Bodhisattva offering. She explains her motivation to not only reduce stress, deal with difficult emotions, and care for yourself and your loved ones, but to help recognize your gifts of deep wisdom, compassion, and courage. And these gifts will animate "your words, actions, and presence...to help reveal our healthy and equitable world. Remember, only everyone can save us—and we're everyone."

"When you look around you it feels like the world is going crazy.... Is this normal or have we all fallen under some spell?" ~Tristan Harris In this episode I take a Buddhist view on the spell we've fallen under—and it is the spell of a self-involved culture, swallowed by social media and focused on the hatred of "the other." We are largely living in a world of the extremes of ignorance and false certainty. "The more fixed we get about things, the more confusion, emotional disturbance, and conflict we experience," according to Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel. Nothing or no one is a fixed, discrete thing. Everything is empty of inherent existence. When you fix a difficult person, a political side, or sociopolitical view, you are creating something that doesn't actually exist. Shantideva said: "Thus, when enemies of friends are seen to act improperly, be calm and call to mind that everything arises from conditions."

Join me for the first of a series of interviews with podcast listeners on how they are coping with the pandemic. In this episode, David Farley, a travel and food writer who lives in New York City, joins me for a conversation. David wrote a blog post where he mused about our seeming missing future. He wrote: We can't envision what life is going to be like in, say, a year or what we'll be doing.... It's seriously anxiety-producing for many of us.... The only way we can maneuver, even survive without eventually imploding, is to change our outlook on life and the world. And reality. Listen for more of this thoughtful conversation with David where he shares his understanding of Buddhist teachings and his refuge in them. And listen for how you can share what you've learned as an upcoming podcast guest!

Announcing a new Everyday Buddhism feature for the Membership Community: A lecture series/workshop on mindful writing! In this series I hope to introduce you to a new way of practicing mindfulness through writing. As Gary Snyder wrote, meditation can put you totally into the world even as it takes you out of it. Mindfulness and meditation are practices of deliberate attention that can create a spacious awareness of what is and help us escape the narrow box in our heads where the thinker lives. Focusing in on what is at any one moment doesn’t narrow our awareness but, instead, opens us up to what is outside our concepts of self and what we ‘think’ we are seeing. This will not be ‘writing course’ but a practice of engaged seeing, hearing, and feeling with the objective of capturing moments and expressing them through writing. This does not mean you need to be a poet, nor a writer. If you would like to join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community and continue your participation in this virtual workshop on mindful writing, you can do so at this link: https://www.everyday-buddhism.com/join-community-or-sangha.html

Join me as I share some insights from an article by Tara Haelle, Your Surge Capacity is Depleted—It's Why You Feel Awful, and some insights of my own, that may help you find new attitudes and practices to help you keep going. Help you go the distance of this pandemic, even though we don't know how long that distance is—or what's at the end. This time of ambiguous loss can cause feelings of helplessness and hopelessness because our solution-oriented culture is actually destructive when faced with a problem that has no solution. Instead we need to look at things differently and do things differently. The end isn't in sight but that doesn't mean we give up. We just need to find new ways to keep going. This podcast should help...PLUS keep listening to find ways YOU, as a podcast listener, can share some of the ways you are coping through these troubled times.

We're currently faced with a global pandemic, which reminds us how uncertain life really is. So what do we do? How do we cope? Join me in conversation with Gregg Krech, who uses the concepts of acceptance—active acceptance—to understand how we can't take effective action until we've accepted the reality of the situation we're in. Gregg talks about how a large portion of the population has not accepted the situation and others whose impatience pushes them to make bad decisions. Is there another way? We talk about 6 action steps we can take to reach deep within ourselves to find capabilities that may have been sleeping for a long time. They are: - Waking up to our faith or true entrusting - Working with our attention - Sharpening our skills of reflecting on ourselves - Recognizing the blessings that we encounter throughout the day - Act constructively and compassionately in the face of fear - Find something purposeful and meaningful to live for each day

Join me for a short episode check-in and sharing of how I am taking personal action despite living in our current reality of uncertainty. Awakening to the fact that I was spending too much time anxiously looking "out there" at what was or could be coming ... or focusing on the horrible feelings inside me, I decided to turn my personal boat around. As Gregg Krech of the ToDo Institute reminds us "Everyone is dealing with losses but ultimately it's an individual thing.... It's not a mass issue. It's your personal situation and attachment." How are you doing as the navigator and pilot of your own boat? Listen for some questions for reflection. And if you have questions about how to cope with these uncertain times email them to wendyshinyo@everyday-buddhism.com with the subject line "Question for Gregg" and Gregg Krech, one of the leading authorities of Japanese Psychology will do his best to answer them in an upcoming podcast episode.

Join me for an episode that is part autobiographical, part solidarity with Pride and Black Lives matter, part poetry, part science, and part Buddhism. Sounds a bit chaotic, doesn't it? Yet I hope you find some relevant order. Sharing a recent experience with my own revisiting of internal trauma sparked by the external trauma of pandemic politics and social unrest, I tried to find order in the chaos through poetry and, of course, Buddhism. Every life has some chaos because as the poet Gregory Orr writes, "there is a great deal of disorder in experience." Or stated through a Buddhist lens, "the unenlightened life is suffering." Yet, in the suffering and chaos there may be a new heartbeat; the birth of a new order, if we lean in and keep going with strong back and soft front.

Join me for a special guest episode with Dr. Christiane Michelberger, a retired physician, psychoanalyst, and past spiritual seeker who currently mentors seekers in their quest to awaken. Christiane talks about how more than 10,000 hours of meditation and 40 years of studying Buddhist scriptures didn’t help her deal with debilitating fear when she was faced with the reality of breast cancer. It was then that she took steps to escape from a habit of "spiritual sleepwalking" and find a way to see through the 'me' that it is at the heart of our dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and suffering. Christiane and I share a wide-ranging conversation about the importance of seeing through the 'me' … embracing the ordinary … why meditation may not be enough … shifting from spiritual illusions to simple reality ... spiritual bypassing … brainwashing and guru worship … and dealing with the stages of grief we might be going through during the new pandemic reality we find ourselves in.

In this episode, I reflect on our responses when we find ourselves in life situations that don't make sense and that are out of our control. As we make our way through the global Covid-19 pandemic we see humbling examples of courage and compassion. And we also see examples of people responding in fear and anger. The symptoms of fight, flight, or freeze—our natural responses to perceived threats—are everywhere you look. We have been smacked in our collective and previously comfortable faces with the need to find ways of accepting what is happening to us. And many of us aren't doing so well. Yet, the pandemic is teaching us about interdependence, change, and impermanence in a profound way. Our choice is to respond like victims or like the brave front-line workers, with a noble response to suffering.

Join me for a special guest episode with Duncan Ryuken Williams, the author of American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War. 125,000+ Japanese-Americans we rounded up and placed in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many of these were Buddhists who persevered despite their imprisonment. Circumstances that were no fault of their own but because of their "Japanese faces" and their faith in a non-Christian religion seen as anti-American. And they kept going because of that faith. The lessons shared in this episode can help us, too, find faith and freedom during this time of separation and community during the global Covid-19 pandemic.

The whole world is afraid. A tiny piece of biological stuff—this virus—brought the world to its knees. A contagion or plague of this level is not new to the world but new to most of us living today. We have very little experience dealing with this level of uncertainty. This makes protecting the health of our minds and hearts as important as protecting the health of our bodies. There has never been a better time to develop a practice of finding a healthy balance between being informed and tormenting yourself. Listen as I share mantra, breathing, awareness, and mindful writing practices that might help.

There is a view of Buddhism that is idealistic. That it's all about meditating and chanting in an incense-filled room, hidden away from the world. That the peace promised in Buddhism comes from being away from, above, or different from, the troubles of the world. If your mind is full of what you think Buddhism or spirituality "should" be, no matter what teaching is placed at your feet, the grip of your expectations will prevent you from absorbing it or finding a new perspective that might bring you peace. The Buddha was soaked in the troubles and suffering of the world and it is what drove him to find out what suffering was made of. The peace the Buddha promised is found in a personal understanding of ignorance and the practice to overcome it. The peace you seek is not an escape from the world but an understanding of it.

This is a special episode dedicated to the life of our good friend and neighbor—too soon lost. It focuses on the haiku by Issa: This world of dew is a world of dew, and yet, and yet. Listen as I read writings of my grief and how I come to the realization that maybe "and yet" is not just "nevertheless it hurts" but also "but yet." It's all in how you show up for yourself and for others. In that showing up, false borders of belief and concepts disappear in our shared precariousness. In our shared impermanence. In our world of dew ... As we share grief and are healed for a moment.

Join me for a special episode and conversation with Ken McLeod, author, translator, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Ken and I talk about his innovative approach to teaching and writing about traditional Buddhist texts and practices. I reached out to Ken because I connected on a deep level to the material in his books and in the written and audio presentations on his website, unfetteredmind.org. Ken McLeod's ability to accomplish a sort of direct pointing to a knowing experience beyond the words and conceptual understanding was a rare find in my experience with other books and talks on Tibetan Buddhist texts. That is what I wanted to introduce to my podcast audience. Whether you're new to Buddhism, just intrigued, or a long-time practitioner, spending some time with Ken's work will shake off the worries of whether you understand the words and transport you directly into the answers.

2020 seems like something out of Sci-Fi. But here we are. And from my perspective—approaching my 67th birthday in a little under 2 weeks—we ARE living in what was the sci-fi from my childhood perspective. I imagine, though, that for most of my podcast listeners, how we are living today doesn't seem like sci-fi to you. It's not that new for you. It all depends on where you stand—your perspective. Here we are. From where you sit, listening to this podcast, you may be filled with hope or despair. You may have pain or feel great. You may be young or you may be old. But you are where you are. And we're all here with you. It may look different where I'm sitting, but I am here right now, just as you are. And, together, we'll enter 2020.   Another year, another decade on the calendar, but if we live at the moment, we can have an awareness of just being here. With no before and after and no "room for memories or imagined futures." That is the ultimate fact and it transcends the duality of new year, old year; young person, old person; well person or sick person. Yes, everything changes and we are in motion on the horizontal time train, but, "in vertical time, everything is accessible; every possibility is restful and free."

In this episode, we celebrate Bodhi Day, the traditional celebration of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni's enlightenment. Yet, listen as we discover how it is a celebration of our enlightenment, too. The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. Without darkness, we couldn't know light. Shakyamuni's enlightenment experience is ours. He proclaimed, "I and the great earth, and all beings are naturally and simultaneously awakened." We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light.

In this special episode, I celebrate with podcast listeners the publication of my book Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change. The book officially launches on Monday, November 26th. In this special episode, l'll share a bit about why I wrote the book and a few snippets from the book, plus announce a special offer to the Everyday Buddhism podcast tribe about a special, 1-day offer on the Kindle eBook valid only on Sunday, November 25th. So check out the podcast! And, of course, pick up a Kindle eBook or paperback version of my book and tell me what you think.

In this episode, we'll look at the overlaps between the pagan origination, rituals, and concepts of Halloween and Tibetan Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism ... and also examine it all from an Everyday Buddhism perspective. What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky? Buddhism is about seeing life as it is...seeing ourselves for who we really are...and all others for who they are. It is only then we can develop equanimity and compassion for all, including ourselves. Until then, we are living among apparitions like those on Halloween.

Join me and round the bases for a look at baseball as a metaphor for the Buddhist teaching of the Three Marks of Existence: Impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and the lack of a discrete self. Life, like baseball, is a team sport. In baseball, it's not just about the pitcher. In life, it's not just about me or you. All the players and contributing causes and conditions come together to score runs in a dominating offensive win or through a defensive no-hitter. In life, we can't do anything on our own. Baseball can break your heart and fill you with hope. Life can turn from bad to worse in a day, minute, or hour, because of the impermanent and sometimes unsatisfactory nature of it. No matter the pitch, we keep swinging until we get a hit. And we keep playing through the season.

In this episode, we talk about Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta characterizes the path of a Mahayana practitioner. It is Bodhicitta that creates a Bodhisattva and it is Bodhicitta that ultimately creates a Buddha. In Tibetan, compassion is translated as the nobility or greatness of heart which implies wisdom, discernment, empathy, unselfishness, and abundant kindness. Bodhicitta is compassion working with a mind awakened by right view. It is the joining of compassion and emptiness. We'll examine how to use the Four Bodhisattva Vows to supercharge Right Intention with Right View and discover the same spacious freedom of a flower that blooms despite its circumstances.  

In this special guest episode, join me in a conversation with Dena Moes, the author of the book The Buddha Sat Right Here: A Family Odyssey Through India and Nepal. Listen as we share some laughs, talk deep Buddhist philosophy, explore the difference between Indian and U.S. cultures and the way children are raised, and how in India there is a complete incorporation of interdependence as a reality, not a spiritual concept. Sample a taste of Dena's award-winning book that is equal parts travelogue, spiritual discovery, and internal pilgrimage into new ways of thinking about family life, love, and spirituality.

In this special podcast, we'll revisit the topic of "Right Speech" through a reflection and practice tip from my upcoming book. We'll focus on how right speech depends more on listening than speaking. Speaking is dualistic. Listening is a non-dual activity of Oneness. Most of the time, the reason we speak is to speak TO or AT someone, expressing ourselves to the other. And, frequently, expressing how they ARE the other. And so much speaking is completely unnecessary. The trick is to maintain an open awareness when listening. Deep listening requires guarding your internal chatter, judgments, and reactive responses. When you are truly listening, you are totally engaged. And when you are engaged, your conversation partner will feel heard.   

What is a perfect day? A perfect relationship? Join me for a discussion of perfection in a podcast featuring a wedding Dharma talk. Stay until the end to respond to the challenge of making your own vows, allowing for the perfection of 'the other' in all your relationships. The perfection of life exists in impermanence and interdependence—the very things that end up messing with our plans. A perfect relationship happens at the intersection of person, place, and time. And can only happen when each person allows the other person, the place, and the time to unfold just as life nudges it to unfold. Allowing everything to be as it is, while remaining an open, non-judgmental participant, enables something beautiful—like a shared laugh or surprise—to arise out of the perfect now.

In this episode we'll talk about the 7th and 8th steps of The Noble Eightfold Path, Right Mindfulness and Right Meditation, also called Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. It takes one to know the other and it all starts with an openness of mind. Studies show that meditation seems to cease the activity of the lobes in the brain that determine where self ends and non-self begins. Meaning, meditation can dissolve our sense of separateness and heighten a sense of interconnection. This is the intention we should hold when we practice meditation. Again, it all starts with awareness. Being aware of what IS. The Buddha did not teach enlightenment as escape to another world and meditation as its vehicle. No, the Buddha taught that enlightenment is truly seeing and being in the life you are in.

The Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I think many connect with the *jewel* or treasure aspect of the Buddha and Dharma, but Sangha? The Buddha taught the Dharma as an experiential path. His advice is to try it for ourselves, rather than taking his or anyone else's word for it.  It is Sangha that moves Buddhism beyond a study or philosophy to something lived and alive. But you have to practice or it doesn't work. Sangha is where you perfect your practice with others doing the same thing. We come just as we are. Working on practices, not being people who are already perfect. The Sangha accepts us and supports us so that we can become more honest with ourselves and others. We learn to accept ourselves AND others. We accept our humanity, together.  

In the 4th of the "talking with my teachers" series, I am talking with Rev. Satya Robyn, a priest in the Amida Order, about how the whole of messy humanity is met by the divine when we relax our sense of control and know that life accepts us just as we are. Satya talks of her journey from atheist to psychotherapist and Pureland Buddhist priest. And how she was "grabbed" by Amida, the celestial Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, the Buddha of acceptance and compassion. She describes the simplicity of Pureland Buddhism and the practice of the Nembutsu, where in saying the name we open a little portal of connection to the compassion and wisdom of Amida Buddha. I know you'll delight in Satya's beautiful ways of communicating the heart and soul of spiritual practice, Buddhism, Pureland Buddhism, refuge, and—yes—the "f" word or faith.    

Meditating on death is a traditional Buddhist practice. In this podcast, we'll talk about how thinking about our own and others' death can help us live more fully. All the things that keep us busy and entertained might help us forget about the certainty of death, but it won't help us escape it. Reflecting on death can help us remember that the "shiny" things we find attractive and desirable will soon lose their appeal. We can try to avoid the suffering the thought of death brings or we can look at it directly and make ourselves familiar. I offer an Everyday-Buddhism approach to death meditation that does not include spending a night in Tibetan charnel grounds or even your local cemetery. Instead, reflect on the lives that go before us and feel the realness of live and death through visits to legacy.com. w

The "Eastern Way" of psychology offers a profoundly different paradigm than Western psychology. Join me as a talk with Gregg Krech, one of the leading authorities on Japanese Psychology in North America, about this difference. Using the Buddhist concept of "skillful means", Japanese psychology offers methods to master the skills of acceptance, attention, co-existing with unpleasant feelings, and self-reflection. Rather than talking it out, we can develop skills to cope more effectively with anxiety, depression, anger, shyness, procrastination ... you name it! Ultimately based on the practical, we can learn how to focus on our purpose and an appropriate response to the needs of each situation, rather than a reaction to our feelings—removing our feelings from the position of "Director" in the play of life.  

In a listener-requested podcast I relate how the story of releasing cows from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, helped me find freedom from suffering over a series of minor personal losses and disappointments...and freedom FROM the losses themselves. We each have "cows" we're grasping onto. According to Thich Nhat Hanh, our biggest "cows" are our narrow ideas of happiness. We suffer because of grasping to those ideas. Every one of us has cows to be released. We continue to suffer until we are able to release the very ideas themselves. Join me as I tell me story about finding freedom from the suffering of loss—and from the losses themselves—by digging my lotus roots into the mud of life, to become relaxed and tender, instead of rigid.    

Tibetan Buddhism seems mysterious, intriguing, and sometimes scary. In this episode I talk with Frank Howard of the White Lotus Buddhist Center in Rochester, New York—continuing my series of "Talking with My Teachers"—who explains that it's not as mysterious as it seems and it's certainly not scary! As Frank explains, there is only ONE Dharma and Tibetan Buddhism is a sort of a misnomer. It is Buddhism, containing all Buddhist forms, but also the Vajrayana or Mantrayana path. Like the Mahayana path, motivation is the most important part. The motivation of kindness and compassion through the Bodhisattva path of benefiting all beings. Listen as we talk about motivation, faith as confidence, our weaknesses and their antidotes, and how "Buddhism is completely practical and makes your life better."  

In this first of a special series of episodes dedicated to honoring my teachers, I have a conversation with the spiritual head of The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism, Rev. Koyo Kubose. It is with Bright Dawn and my Sensei, I learned how bring Buddhism into the everyday. Listen as we discuss what the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and its Lay Ministry program is all about, from Rev. Koyo's perspective ... its historical influences, its mission, vision, and special niche as a program bringing the Dharma to everyone in an ordinary, everyday way. We'll talk about the balance of gratitude, humility, ambiguity, uncertainty, perfect studentship, and — most importantly — naturalness, in Bright Dawn and it's lay ministers, as they bring the Dharma to the people.    

Join me for a special episode in honor of Bodhi Day, celebrating Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. The long nights of December are marked by numerous celebrations using light as a symbol. Bodhi Day can be adopted as a holiday for your own personal or family "culture." Light symbolizes a rekindling of the spiritual impulse and a turning toward awakening, toward enlightenment. Bodhi Day is a time to celebrate our own awakening to the spirit of our Buddha Nature that is lighting our path with wisdom and embracing us with compassion. Happy Bodhi Day!  

In this episode I'll talk about my uneasy relationship with the 5 Precepts. Do they produce more questions—and more confusion—than answers? Do they cause more suffering than they prevent? I'll explore how, if looked at as rules and "thou shall not's", they set up barriers between Right View and the Dharma I believe the Buddha taught. And they can also separate people from each other and themselves, if they feel like failures. When we work with the precepts, we do so with the understanding that "self" and "other" are delusions. There is nothing external to us acting as an authority. Clearing up ignorance is what alleviates suffering. This requires working with ourselves on a very deep and intimate level—honestly evaluating our own motivations and thinking deeply about how our actions will affect others. Don't look "out there" for permission or an authority who will reward or punish us for breaking the "rules." This concept of ethics in the 5 Precepts is not one based on a transactional experience, but is firmly anchored in the non-dual perspective central to Buddhist philosophy.  

Join me in a conversation with Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon, authors of the just-released book, Radically Happy: A User's Guide to the Mind. In the book and in our conversation, ancient wisdom meets modern methods as we explore the universal search for well-being, for happiness. As Rinpoche and Erric discuss with me, the root of happiness has somehow slipped through our fingers, as we gallop through are always-on, always distracted modern world. And they discuss how their new book will help us: Get to know our own mind .... Stop the looking-for-happiness conundrum ... Relax the comparing and judging ... Be more present, attentive, and aware ... And access a subtle sense of well-being, even when things are not so great.  

When we think of Buddhism, we think of meditation. In this episode I will take you on a tour of the many ways to meditate. But at the core of the episode is the simple awareness that all meditation rests on ... and that everyday happiness rests on. Join me as I talk about what simple awareness is. Awareness is simply that and our minds are aware by their very nature, yet that nature is obscured by thoughts and emotions. Simple, clear awareness exists between our thoughts and underneath our emotions. In this episode I'll share some of my experiences with joyous spontaneous awareness and a little of my own awareness meditation practice ... in hopes of inspiring you to look for and relax into the awareness that is at the heart of meditation and your being.    

Join me as I explore the very earthly foundations of Buddhism itself, as we turn the light of Dharma towards ecology. Siddhartha Gautama asked the Earth to confirm his enlightenment, his Buddhahood. He did not ask for help from heavenly beings. He asked the Earth. In an episode celebrating "Earth Care Week", we'll reflect on climate change and think about our own personal relationship with the earth, as spiritual practice. In giving up grasping at heaven "out there", our home, Mother Earth, offers us the heaven right under our feet. Thinking about the Earth and how to reconnect can be a central practice for centering your mind ... slowing it down ... and syncing your body and mind to the Earth's rhythm.    

In the first "Ask Me Anything" Episode, I respond to a listener's question about Buddhist insight into protesting. I circle around this question by sharing thoughts I had from my own life and two Dharma talks I gave in January and July of 2017. Instead of focusing what we're protesting and why, I talk more about what was in my mind and how it made my feel. This is where I think the focus needs to be: "What's in your mind?" Does your urge for speech or action come from an intention of anger or intention of peace? Can I help create peace, equality, and justice through a motivation of anxiety, anger, and divisiveness?  If we come to the proposed solution as broken selves, can we help? Can we bring our own peace to unrest? Come and sit with me in the questions.    

In this podcast, we'll look at the sixth part of The Eightfold Path and the first step into the area of meditation: Right Effort. Is your energy, your efforts, positive contributors to making you more content ... and making the people around you more content? If not, maybe you need to bring attention to and tweak your habits a little bit. We'll look at the hindrances to right effort and the obstacles to concentration or destructive trains of thought. It's all about noticing and removing or replacing a little habit, followed by another, and another. And guess what? It all hinges on paying attention; about noticing. That is the hard part. Adjusting your habits isn't as hard. Listen to find ways to help in creating "joyous effort" through "The Five Daily Guidelines" offered by The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: http://www.brightdawn.org/Five%20Daily%20Life%20Guidelines.pdf    

In this podcast, we'll look more closely at koans, poetry, koan practice in general ... and we'll see how to work with one koan, specifically ... to start your practice. We'll look at the koan, "Manjushri Enters the Gate." I will provide an interpretation from Rev. Gyomay Kubose, as well as how I worked with this koan. But each person must bring his own wisdom to a koan. Koan practice IS for everyday life! It is for taking up your everyday — the kitchen or the office — as a koan. How can you use a koan in everyday life? How can you use a koan to break free from thinking ruts, hardened concepts, judgments?  

Up for a fun challenge? In this podcast, I talk about my love of Zen Koans, as one of the rarest practices for 'messing with' your conceptual mind and shaking your false trust in the stability of what we think is 'knowledge.' A koan is, in essence, a problem that can't be solved by the intellect. In trying to understand it, you run up against the limitations of thought and, hopefully, tap into a direct and non-verbal awareness of reality. Most people think of koans as riddles or puzzles to solve. It's not about that. The deal with koans is that they are about "I don't know." Koans expose us to the fact that we are so stuffed with concepts and snared by thinking that we can't see what's right in front of us ... in the kitchen ... in the garden ... the desk ... out our window ... on a familiar walk. These are the places where koans leap from. Through koans we get a glimpse into how to let the world come to us in whatever shape it takes.    

In this podcast, we'll look at how we can move from thinking about work as what we are ... or as something we're 'stuck with' ... or as something we are 'becoming' on our progression up the ladder ... to how and who we are being with our work. Are we authentic? Are we mindful? Work is THE golden opportunity to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We spend most of our waking hours at work. This is where we are presented with all the tough choices about right view, right intention, right speech, and right action. Practicing "Right Livelihood" means practicing Right Mindfulness. The way you answer the phone ... the way you talk to a co-worker or client ... the way you file a file ... the way you act in a meeting. Do we honestly try to take care of our co-workers and customers? Or are we just doing our job?  

When you consciously try to build mindfulness into your day, what you notice is that sometimes NOT speaking and NOT acting is the best possible action … the RIGHT Action. Our culture, we are hard-wired to respond to everything that happens to us, or around us, with either activity or speech. It is nearly impossible to deprogram ourselves from that. Even in situations where there is absolutely nothing we can do, we still impulsively try to do or say something. But sometimes non-action is the smartest action. Certainly mindfulness is. As my social media promotion for this podcast expressed for Lao Tzu: "Do you have the patience to wait...till your mud settles and the water is clear?" We don’t have to act immediately, just because we have an internal reaction. We can pause, not act, breathe. We can watch this urge to act irrationally arise, then let it go away. Sometimes that takes a few seconds, other times it means we should remove ourselves politely from the situation and let ourselves cool down before we respond.      

Mindfulness has become mainstream, but it is still confusing or unreachable for some who try to begin a mindfulness practice. What is it? Meg Salter takes the "woo-woo" out of it. Mindfulness is not some magic light bulb that goes off and you're magically transformed, as Meg explains. You're still the same old person...only a slightly better version. And guess what? It's not all about sitting cross-legged on a $200 cushion. Listen to Meg describe the "real benefit" of mindfulness: when you take it off the cushion. Learn about mindfulness in the style of Everyday Buddhism!  

In this podcast we're going to talk about "Right Speech" or why we should consider just "zipping it." Talking. We're always talking. Even when we're listening we're talking ... mentally creating our responses. And, now, with endless social media forums and "drive-by" Twitter and Instagram talking, it's a constant stream of yap, yap, yap. Sharing our opinion of everything with everyone. Learn about the 4 practices of right speech ... Oh, and why Buddhas have big ears and small mouths, while emoticons have big mouths and NO ears.

In this podcast we're going to talk about "Right Intention" or how to be less of a jerk. Trying to be less of a jerk requires action ... not just thinking. We typically have trouble self-correcting, because we do things habitually or from a reactionary pattern. We never actually see ourselves doing them, until we complete the action. Being mindful is the process needed to accomplish change. Discover the "magic power" of equanimity and learn about Thich Nhat Hanh's 4 practices of right intention.

In this podcast I'm talking with Noah Rasheta of the Secular Buddhism podcast and author of the books: Secular Buddhism and No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners: Clear Answers to Burning Questions About Core Buddhist Teachings. Noah has a great story to share about a crisis of faith, existential angst, and a wondering if everything was falling apart. You won't be disappointed in his story of how he discovers how you can be comfortable in uncertainty through his exploration of Buddhist teachings and practice. You can find out more about Noah on his website: https://secularbuddhism.com/

In this episode, as a fun diversion, I'm going to talk about "the Buddhist answer to everything. And the answer is: "Maybe." A loose quote from The Lankavatara Sutra: "Things are not what they seem; nor are they otherwise” … which is really saying things are as we label them and we label them as perceive them at the moment. But someone else may perceive them in a different way and we, also, may very probably perceive them in a different way, at a different time, under different circumstances. Yep, that's a maybe. Buddhism is experiential. You must practice to find out the answer. You must apply it to understand it. You need to ask the questions of yourself and find your own answers. "Maybe" puts certainty on hold ... giving you time to find your own truth.    

In this podcast, we'll look at the Buddhist concept of "No-Self", or Anatta, I introduced in episode 2. Where is your "self"? Is it something you can describe? It's hard to describe or identify as a discrete and non-changing thing, yet we sometimes cling to ideas of self that cause us to be stuck and miserable in life. Do you wear an internal label that "brands" you forever in your own mind, your own sense of identity? Are you trapped wearing the label of chronically ill? Victim? Old and useless? What if you could see life outside the shadow of that label? What if you could catch a glimpse of life happening without that "you" getting in the way? In this episode, I offer 3 short mindfulness exercises that will allow you to slip away from yourself for a few minutes and feel how peaceful it is!

This episode is about finding your WHY. How do you feel about your life? Is it motivated by a big story, something bigger than yourself and your own little ego-driven, perceived wants and needs? The Buddha offered his followers an opportunity to become part of a big story. Being part of a big story is the answer to your WHY. It's a story of how our afflictions are met with a noble response. Do you complain about everything? Your aches and pains, your busyness, the weather? In our culture it seems complaining is the natural way of communication. A constant drone of whining. We wear our complaints like badges of honor. The Buddha offered another way in his big story. The story of how our thoughts and feelings—which sometimes can feel and be so destructive—can actually be transformed into happiness, by following a path that teaches us to see life as it is, not as we would like it to be. Instead of having a whiny response to life, the Buddha taught us to see life exactly as it is: A noble response.

In the first podcast episode of Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better we'll talk about what it means to be an "insider." The Tibetan word for Buddhist is called Nangpa. Nangpa means “insider.” Everything in our lives is about how we look at things and nobody makes us see things another way. We have to own our own perspective. We can’t blame anger, sadness—or even happiness—on anything on the outside. Nobody made you feel angry, sad, or happy. You made yourself angry. Something might've happened outside of you to make you the anger arise, but it came from inside of you. It is only in our looking inside will we discover answers to any of our questions or solutions to any of our problems. Change your mind; change your life.